Hugely anticipated new movie and spin-off of the Harry Potter film series, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is directed by NFTS alumnus, David Yates. Yates is best known for directing the final four Harry Potter films and graduated from the National Film and Television School Directing Fiction MA in 1992. On reading J.K Rowling’s script for Fantastic Beasts, Yates commented in a recent interview: “[…] it was just the most delightful read. It was charming, moving, tender. It felt fresh and it was with a bunch of people that I really love working with so, it was a bit of a no-brainer.”
Fantastic Beasts stars Eddie Redmayne and is set in the wizarding world in 1926 New York. Something mysterious is leaving a path of destruction in the streets, threatening to expose the wizarding community to the Second Salemers, a fanatical faction of No-Majs (American for Muggles) bent on eradicating them. And the powerful, dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald, after wreaking havoc in Europe, has slipped away… and is now nowhere to be found. Other NFTS alumni credited include:
Huw Arthur, Standby Art Director; James M Spencer, Draughtsman; Ivor Talbot, Sound Mixer: Second Unit; Robert Malone, Sound Design Editor and Zach du Toit, Pre-vis/Generalist TD.
Bob the Street Cat is another movie that is set to attract big audiences and also credits an NFTS grad, this time on Production Design. Antonia Lowe who graduated from studying a Production Design MA at the NFTS in 2011 is credited as Production Designer on the movie, which stars Luke Treadaway and is based on the international best-selling book of the same name. Bob the Street Cat is the true story of how James Bowen, a busker and recovering drug addict, had his life transformed when he met a stray ginger cat.
NFTS grads are also working on the second series of hit TV drama, Humans. Lewis Arnold returns as director of the first two episodes and composing graduate, Sarah Warne composed the score for the BAFTA nominated series.
The latest Marvel movie, Dr Strange, which is out now and stars Benedict Cumberbatch features a whole host of NFTS alumni including:
Gary Jopling, Assistant Art Director; Yasmin Al-Naib, Assistant Stand-by Art Director; Rebecca Gibson, Production Assistant: Additional Photography; Caroline Houghton, Assistant Production Co-ordinator: Additional Photography; Isona Rigau, Draughtsperson and Alexander Toomey, Draughtsperson.
And last but not least, the next big drama to be launched on Netflix, The Crown, also benefits from a large number of NFTS grads. The show is a biographical story about the reign of Queen Elizabeth II and is scheduled to be released in its entirety on November 4, 2016. Alumni include:
Una Ni Dhonghaile, Editor (selected episodes) who has also just won an IFTA award for Best Editor; Stuart Hilliker, Sound Re-recording Mixer; Martin Jensen, Re-recording Mixer; Jorge Canada Escorihuela, Additional VFX Supervisor: On Set (3eps), Victor Tomi, Digital Compositor (5 eps).
If you would like to follow in their footsteps, there are still places available on courses starting in January 2017 ranging from Film Studies, Programming and Curation; Marketing, Distribution, Sales and Exhibition, Graphics & Titles for Film and Television, and Digital Effects.
